Agonistic behaviour is any social behaviour related to fighting, which can include aggressive behaviour, but also threats, displays, retreats, placation, and conciliation. The term "agonistic behaviour" was first defined and used by J.P. Scott and Emil Fredericson in 1951 in their paper "The Causes of Fighting in Mice and Rats" in Physiological Zoology. Agonistic behaviour is seen in many animal species because resources including food, shelter, and mates are often limited. Ritualized aggression or ritualized fighting is when animals use a range of behaviours as posture or warning but without engaging in serious aggression or fighting, which would be expensive in terms of energy and the risk of injury. Ritualized aggression involves a graded series of behaviours or displays that include threatening gestures (such as vocalizations, spreading of wings or gill covers, lifting and presentation of claws, head bobbing, tail beating, lunging, etc.) and occasionally posturing physical actions such as inhibited (non-injurious) bites. This behavior is explained by evolutionary game theory. Some forms of agonistic behaviour are between contestants who are competing for access to the same resources, such as food or mates. Other times, it involves tests of strength or threat display that make animals look large and more physically fit, a display that may allow it to gain the resource before an actual battle takes place. Although agonistic behaviour varies among species, agonistic interaction consists of three kinds of behaviours: threat, aggression, and submission. These three behaviours are functionally and physiologically interrelated, yet fall outside the narrow definition of aggressive behaviour. While any one of these divisions of behaviours may be seen alone in an interaction between two animals, they normally occur in sequence from start to end. Depending on the availability and importance of a resource, behaviours can range from a fight to the death or a much safer ritualistic behaviour, though ritualistic or display behaviours are the most common form of agonistic behaviours.
As studied in rodents Scott and Fredericson describe that agonistic behaviour is displayed in a variety of different circumstances in response to different stimuli. Scott and Fredericson studied mice and rats, and classified three main categories of agonistic behaviour these animals display, which include preliminary behaviour, attack, and defensive and escape behaviour. Preliminary behaviour describes the behaviours displayed by these rodents if fighting does not immediately begin. These may include involuntary behaviours such as hair-fluffing, where the rodent's hair stands up on end with no prominence on a particular region of the body, or tail-rattling where the rodent's tail experiences muscle contraction and twitches from side to side, making a loud sound if struck against a hard object. Another preliminary agonistic behaviour demonstrated by mice is referred to as mincing behaviour which is when mice circle their opponent before a fight begins. The fight itself is classified as one of the pattern of behaviour that occurs and involves physical violence between the rodents. Finally, the defensive and escape behaviour occurs usually immediately after the fight and is displayed by the mouse that was defeated in the fight. The defeated mouse, if allotted space, will run away and try and take shelter from the victorious mouse. If it is not possible for the mouse to physically run and escape because space is not available, the defeated mouse will rear up on its hind legs and hold its front legs up in a way that is characterized as a "submissive stance". These are examples of the physical behaviours that are responses to conflict in mice.
Evolution and ecology of agonistic behaviour: Stomatopoda (praying mantis shrimp)
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
